by Leah Fleming
Yet these people were handsome, strong and hardworking, with rich traditions and deep superstitions. The gangs of men and women they rounded up for road work bent their backs without complaint in the arid heat of the day, at least to their faces. They had a proud stare, often singing at their work, strange rhymes and folk songs; mantinades that defeated his basic Greek, words that changed from day to day. Judging by the looks and laughs in their direction, his men were the butt of their words, though he couldn’t prove anything.
The further into the hills they pushed, the less he felt secure among the overhanging rocks and narrow gullies, slipping on gravel sharp as razors. The threat of an ambush was ever present, making sun-soaked men tetchy, ready to shoot anything that moved.
Spotter planes swept over the mountains and plains, while armed patrols scoured the bridleways, searching for fugitives. They had secured the services of dubious local men who knew the best hiding places and the tricks of secreting stores against the order not to hoard goods. But there must be places known only to goatherds and shepherds that defied anyone discovering. Rainer didn’t trust the turncoats, willing to sell their fellow neighbours for a few drachmas, but in war you took help where you could.
It was on the Askifou plain that they scented out a trail leading up impossible scree. Dogs and troops scrambling up gave a warning and a flurry of men in rough costume began to run for cover. The grim fight that followed left two of Rainer’s men dead, and wounded some ragged soldiers. Schiller, one of his patrol leaders, wiry and short-tempered at the best of times, was incensed by the resistance and took his men up into the caves, flushing out at gun point some pathetic remnants of the British Army, dressed in rags, half starved, with wounds and on crutches. They surrendered without any fight left in them.
At the back was a bearded soldier covered in mosquito bites, dragging a wounded leg. Rainer examined them. Some had made pathetic attempts to pass themselves off as locals. This lot would be better off in a camp. The food they had left was little more than water bottles and a bag of snails. They wouldn’t survive much longer in this condition. How could you not feel sorry for proud soldiers who had come to this sorry state?
The Cretan sun showed no mercy on any of them as they slid their way down to the track, to march them on to base for further questioning.
It was going to be a long trek and the prisoners begged for time to rest. Schiller was not happy; he wanted them to push on in front in case there were any snipers hiding in the olives or pines. He wanted to torment them and punish them for the death of his friends. But Rainer knew that soldiers under pressure explode, so he insisted everyone be rested under the shade of the olives where even the sheep were nestling under a cloud of flies. The prisoners were given water.
Rainer strolled away to relieve himself, smoke a cigarette and wonder what the hell he was doing halfway up a mountain when his skills were needed in Egypt or on the eastern front. This was all part of his rehabilitation to stretch his weakened muscles, get his fighting strength back for long marches.
As he stood up to return he heard a gunshot. He hurried back to the olive trees where the prisoners stood around the body of a man, shot in the head. There was bruising where he’d been kicked around in the earth.
‘Who did this?’ Rainer stormed.
‘Sir, he wouldn’t get up. It was time to go. He refused,’ said Schiller with a look of utter contempt in his eyes.
‘He was sick, you bastard,’ shouted one of the British, actually an Australian by the sound of him. ‘He was sick!’
Rainer looked closely, realizing it was the poor bugger from the cave, ginger-haired, covered in bites and wounded. Uncontrollable anger rose within him at such an act of cruel vengeance reaped on a defenceless man. Schiller had been waiting for a chance to beat the daylights out of his enemy. The look of triumph on his face turned to a smirk and then surprise as Rainer pulled him aside.
‘What are you thinking of? The man was unarmed,’ he spat.
‘These pigs shot my comrade.’
‘Not this man, as well you know.’
‘They are all pigs!’ Schiller ranted.
‘Speak when you are spoken to, Corporal!’ Rainer ordered, but Schiller was unhearing.
‘We should shoot the lot of them, murdering bastards.’ Schiller pulled out his gun.
‘And you, Corporal, kill a man in cold blood, sick and unarmed. I will not have this behaviour under my command.’
In one smooth movement he pulled out his Luger and shot Schiller in the temple. His body hit the ground like a felled tree and then there was a stunned silence.
‘That goes for any of you,’ Rainer shouted, looking slowly round at his men, seeing the shock on their faces. ‘We are German soldiers, not a rabble. Bury these men now,’ he ordered.
It was only when they had marked the spot with stones and helmets, and the patrol was marching back to base in silence alongside shuffling prisoners, that Rainer realized what he had done in killing one of his own men. But it was too late for regrets. Was it fear, frustration and the fury of knowing he would have to explain his actions that had made him mete out such a punishment?
There had to be standards of behaviour in a conquering army; decency, humanity. Hadn’t a British medic rescued him in the heat of battle, given him a chance of life on that street in Galatas? At least now he had repaid that mercy. He would make a full report, knowing his behaviour would not go down well. Strange as it was, he had no regrets.
2001
Mack was becoming a regular visitor to our villa, escorting Alex and Lois on jaunts to the beach and suggesting we make a day trip up into the hills to the ancient Roman village of Lappa, finishing with lunch at the waterfalls at Argyroupolis. We were getting used to the heat and wanted to make the most of our remaining time here, but I was nervous of making my way back into the hills, even as a tourist.
I was beginning to like Mack, but anxious that his obvious attention to Lois might be his habitual ploy with single women. Was he on the make? I hoped not because Alex was warming to his presence. Mack was divorced, with children in the UK; that much I had gleaned from his eagerness to show me his children’s pictures. He mentioned his father had served in the Royal Navy on submarines in the Med during the war. He was the youngest of four boys and had hardly known his father, who had died many years ago. It had left him with a fascination to trace his father’s journey and Crete was the perfect harbour to make his base.
When he offered to drive us up to Lappa village on his day off, I took this as a sign of his genuine interest in Lois, who’d been through enough last year to make her wary of any man’s attentions. Perhaps a little holiday romance would do wonders for her confidence.
The villas in the cobbled streets of Lappa were a revelation. It was like stepping back in time. I kept wondering how they fared during the occupation. The buildings had been untouched by bombs and burnings. How many jackboots had strolled along these streets as we were doing, admiring the columns, the architecture and the view to the coast from the ramparts? Whoever was stationed here among the fruit groves must have felt very secure, I mused.
As we drove though the winding roads banked with flowers and gorse, climbing ever higher to another of the nearby villages, the landscape became even more familiar. I thought of that first journey made there in the winter of 1941, that fateful foray out of the city in disguise.
November 1941
As winter approached, the nuns of St Joseph’s and the Orthodox convents in the districts prepared to stock up supplies, sending Penny and other helpers out into surrounding villages to scrounge vegetables, fruit, and grains to help feed their growing school of orphans who needed clothing and shelter. They were also searching for kin to take these children into the relative safety of the nearby villages. Who was to guess that this was part of a ruse, and that this innocent-looking young woman had other motives? The convent had continued to be her home. It made a useful part of the front she now presented to the world.
Riding their trusty mule, Penny was learning the bridle paths and tracks, river beds and bridge crossings, resting under olive groves, finding the kafenions to avoid and the hospitality of courageous priests. They became familiar sights in the foothills of the Apokoronas, regular visitors at checkpoints, showing their identity papers to guards and policemen, passing through unnoticed. Who was to know that Penny’s cloak was lined with medical supplies or that she carried vital letters strapped to her chest? There was even a parcel of dental instruments that Andreas requested to be left near Vafes for future use.
She alone took the risk, hiding loaves, cigarettes, anything portable in her stocking tops and shoes, for use by the growing number of British escapees and freedom fighters.
Yolanda had asked her to help her lover, and once Penny had met the spirited young doctor she promised that he could count on her to make deliveries to designated drops, which were changed regularly to stop poaching from other groups.
She soon discovered that the special Cretan bush telegraph was more efficient than any GPO. Why was it that on delivery day there was always a friendly police chief patrolling the checkpoint, waving her through unsearched, or a door was left unlocked and barking dogs were silent in the shepherd’s hut?
One night, Yolanda had crept through her window with a bottle of walnut juice, which she painted onto Penny’s hair with a comb to darken it, tying it in a headscarf until it had dried. That fancy English rollover style was replaced by a severe plait. They darkened her eyebrows and she marvelled at herself in the mirror; she really did look convincing. With her heavy scarf hiding her features, stooping in black overalls and thick stockings, she was unrecognizable as the tall blonde nurse. It was a good disguise.
The winds were chilly now and she spent many evenings learning to spin wool and knit stockings, mittens and scarves with her pupils. The nuns laughed at her clumsy fingers and frequent mistakes, and teased that she had no home-making skills. Penny wondered what her own mother would make of her appearance now, her coarse hands and leathery skin. England seemed a lifetime ago, another world, not that she had any regrets for choosing to stay.
The more she travelled round the countryside, the more she loved the people. They accepted she was an Athenian nurse, unmarried and religious. She was introduced to mothers, yiayias, young girls who brought their ailments into their conversations, discussing them over mountain teas and glyka, little spoonsful of jam, forced on her from their precious and dwindling stores. Everyone wanted news of relatives in Chania. What was in the shops and market? How were the soldiers treating them? Who had died or been shot, and when were the British coming back to free them?
What could she say but that she lived in a cloister and knew nothing much. It was the perfect cover for her secret activities. Everywhere there were complaints about shortages, looting, sabotage and reprisals. Every village had heroes, villains, traitors, gossips. Some were on the make and take, but at the heart were men like Father Gregorio whose passive resistance to oppression gave his parishioners the courage to defy the ban on sheltering the evading troops.
Often the distances were too far for one journey and Penny, alongside Sister Martine, an older nun who had become a good friend, would stay the night with the local teacher, doctor or priest and his family. She knew their every movement was watched when they entered a village. Could she be a spy or a German agent? Dr Androulakis’s reputation went before him, and the secret grapevine let it be known the Athenian nurse could be trusted. Her papers called her ‘Athina Papadopouli’. She knew never to ask family names. The less you knew, the less you could give away, should the worst happen.
Just before Christmas 1941, they made one last trek into hills, which were already covered in snow. There had been a trawl through the White Mountains by German alpine troops searching for escaped soldiers. The conical stone shepherds’ refuges were full of escapees, some in need of medical treatment, and the local doctor had run out of supplies.
Andreas had been spotted too many times for him to risk delivering more, and there was news of British officers hiding in the hills with instructions to set up a wireless link with Cairo. Penny and Sister Martine volunteered to make one last trip.
Laden with panniers of supplies, the old mule stumbled up the rugged track and Penny walked behind, glad of her nurse’s cloak and patched-up boots. The medical supplies were strapped like a corset under her shift, making her body plumper and weighing her down. Poor Sister Martine had no head for heights and felt sick, but together they forged a path through falling snow towards the first of the villages, which seemed to be carved out of the very rock. It was good to be out in the mountain air, striding out as she had done in Scotland all those years ago, her lungs bursting with exertion, but her companion was no mountain goat and stumbled on the uneven ground. They had to find shelter, and soon. The icy flakes stung her cheeks as the storm grew. Thank the Lord, the old mule knew its path and got them safely to the edge of the village, where they took shelter under the olive trees before one last hike to the square and the café close to the church. There, Kyria Tassoula ushered them in and proceeded to sit them down and wash their frozen feet, massaging them in oil, making Penny want to cry with gratitude at such an act of welcome.
‘Po . . . po. . . po.’ It is too dangerous to send you so far but you are God’s angels of mercy,’ Tassoula cried, shoving cups of warmed goat’s milk into their hands.
Sister Martine coughed and sneezed, her cheeks reddened from exertion and a hint of fever, Penny suspected. ‘I must say my daily prayers,’ she croaked, then stood and promptly fainted on to the earthen floor.
Tassoula helped carry her to the family bed where she began to moan, tossing and turning. ‘This is no cold, Sister,’ she sighed, and Penny knew they would not be making the return journey when Martine was so sick and the weather was closing in.
Tassi’s two young daughters, Maria and Eleni, were helping in the kitchen preparing the food for the evening glendi.
‘You will meet all our guests later,’ Tassi smiled, revealing only three front teeth left. ‘They’ll come when the night covers them, come for something warm. You will see.’
While Martine fought her fever, Penny worked with the girls to prepare the meagre dinner of roots and dried beans. All the cooking was done on the fire while the smell of the very last of their roasted coffee beans scented the air.
Tassi’s husband, Yiannis, sat watching them, silent, flicking his amber beads. Men in the mountains, or in the town for that matter, did no food preparation, no laundry, dairy or housework or child rearing. That was women’s work, as was tending the vegetable plot, spinning and weaving, sewing, praying. Penny had observed this over the past months on her travels. Women ripened early in the sun and aged quickly with the toughness of their daily lives. It seemed so unfair.
Tassi was an energetic and loving spirit. ‘You are a guest, you do nothing,’ she insisted, pointing to a stool, but Penny was ready with a firm reply.
‘When the night comes and the snow traps us, we will be your lodgers and a lodger must pay. I have no money so therefore I must work. It is my orders from the convent. You do not want me to get into trouble; Sister Martine will say I am lazy.’
‘Po, po, po . . .’ Tassi threw her hands up in despair. First round to Penny.
Later, when the beans were bubbling in the pot, men sidled into the café one by one, unshaven, stinking to high heaven, old uniforms disguised as country rags, feet wrapped in cloths or wooden-soled sandals. A few were clearly fair-haired Brits and Antipodeans trying to pass themselves off as locals.
Penny eyed them from the corner of the room. No one must recognize this dowdy, dark-headed spinster in black as Nurse Penelope George. No one must know she was here in the hills on a mission, that she too was a British escapee.
The girls brought out the stew and hunks of bread. The men tried not to wolf down their portions, savouring every last drop. How pinched and tired they all looked, these weary
remnants of a once-proud army, dependent on the charity of these mountain folk for some warmth and succour on such a cold, snowy night.
As the local krassi, tasting of liquorice, flowed, so tongues loosened and then the songs of home began: ‘Roll out the Barrel’, ‘Waltzing Matilda’, ‘Good King Wenceslas’, and Penny felt a wave of nostalgia washing over her for Stokencourt, for Evadne, for childhood memories of Christmas Eve when the church choir sang carols in the hall under their tall Christmas tree. She wanted to weep for these poor men, stranded. Here they were far from home, in a foreign country, at the mercy of strangers, though for tonight all was well.
The café filled up and there were rumours of ships waiting to take them off the island to Egypt, if only they could dodge enemy patrols and reach the south coast.
Penny wanted to warn them to shut their mouths in case there were quislings. Andreas had warned that not every Cretan welcomed this raggle-taggle invasion of soldiers on the scrounge, especially those who had seen their houses blown up, villages burned and relatives shot in reprisal for sheltering Allied soldiers.
As in all Cretan parties, someone had a lute, and music was struck. The old men danced the syrtos dances, round and round in circles, pulling the boys into the ring, and a young shepherd boy jumped and turned in the air like a gazelle. Everyone was clapping and whistling as the music grew faster and wilder.
Maria and Eleni sat in the shadows under their mother’s watchful eye. Then the outer door opened and a flurry of snow and chill cooled the air. For a second everyone froze as the snowman shook the flakes off his shepherd’s kapota.
‘Panayotis! Come, sit down, warm yourself, my friend. How is it out there?’ shouted Yiannis, giving him a bear hug.